The Power of Grace by David Richo

Author:David Richo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

7

Grace in Religion

It was you, O Lord, who accomplished all this in us.

—ISAIAH 26:12

A strong man is not saved by his great strength. . . . Our soul waits for God who is our help and our shield.

—PSALM 33:16, 22

Just wait, soon you too will find rest.

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, “THE WANDERER’S SECOND NIGHT SONG”

It was religion that preserved the concept of grace throughout the centuries. Grace was considered the cause of a gift or miracle and a sense of a divine presence in the world. We still hear the phrase God willing. This is a way of acknowledging a need for the ingredient of grace in our enterprises. Grace in this context is beyond our control and necessary for good things to happen, a common understanding of grace in religious traditions. Human efforts are considered insufficient. Faith is in help from a God who grants supernatural grace.

Supernatural is a term commonly used to refer to the transcendent. In Ken Wilber’s view, as stated in Eye to Eye, however: “Supernatural is simply the next natural step in overall or higher development and evolution.” We might take a cue from Wilber and say that grace is an interior reality within us and the universe and that what is natural is also transcendent, that is, aimed at higher development and evolution.

The German theologian Karl Rahner seems to move in this direction when he teaches that grace, already and always given to everyone, has created a permanent upgrading of our human nature. He calls this feature of our being “a supernatural existential,” using Martin Heidegger’s phrase. This means that grace is an ego-transcending quality, the divine built into every human person. Rahner rejects the possibility of a nongraced human, whether or not he or she is religious or even spiritually oriented. In this theological view, we are fully human, more than an ego, because of grace.

Rahner even proposed that grace is actually the same as the healthy tendency in us to become whole. He saw grace as whatever in us wants to transcend ego limits, to detach from fear and craving, to let go of self-absorption, to release our fully creative self. Our inherent inclination to such transcendence of ego is how grace comes through to us. Thus, grace does not destroy our ego. It works with ego, supplementing its positive efforts and taming its negative inclinations.

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